When The New Kid arrives in town, he is immediately drafted into a city-wide live-action roleplay between the kids of South Park Elementary, which escalates into a good vs. evil battle threatening to consume the world. He shall fight alongside Cartman, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Butters, Jimmy, and Randy as a new friend, to cement his status as either a socially-acceptable savior among peers, or be forevermore known as a loser.

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Fighting is Turn-Based Combat with Action Commands, with the New Kid leveling up from experience points and buying new equipment with money collected from defeated opponents. You also get perks from getting enough friends on Facebook, and you get those from talking to people and completing side quests. While there is a main quest, most of the town of South Park is open from the get-go, allowing you to explore and complete the main quest or side quests at your leisure.

Originally intended to be published by THQ, the game was instead published by Ubisoft due to the former's bankruptcy in early 2013. A sequel, South Park: The Fractured but Whole, was released in 2017, but Obsidian did not come back for development. However, The Stick of Truth is packaged with Fractured But Whole for anyone who buys the latter before the end of January 2018, in order to get anyone who hasn't already played The Stick of Truth up to speed. A side game for mobiles called South Park: Phone Destroyer was released in 2017.

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This game provides examples of:

Absurdly Low Level Cap: The level cap is 15. You'll more than likely hit that by the time you reach Canada, and if you don't, then the enemies in Canada will give so much experience that it's impossible not to. Even if you play on hardcore and avoid sidequests, you'll still reach level 15 as you complete the main quest. At least the enemies scale with your level to keep it balanced.

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: For such a small mountain town, South Park has a very large sewer system with a healthy homeless population.

Action Commands: Despite being a turn-based combat system, the gameplay is persistently interactive, requiring the player to time attacks in order to deal maximum damage or actively defend in order to reduce damage and open opponents up to counters.

Mr. Kim and his war dance. In the episode it's from it was a silly joke and all it did was distract Kim while the Mongolians blew up his wall. Here it will end any non-boss encounter.

Adults Are Useless: This was always the norm in the show, but the game takes it to ridiculous heights. Trained soldiers with machine guns are quickly and hilariously slaughtered by the zombie Nazi fetuses, but The New Kid and his buddies managed to beat the monsters with toy weapons.

All There in the Manual: The game itself is one such manual for the show. It contains the (at least, as of present) canonical layout of the titular town, as well as some details about some characters that you learn as you explore.

Anal Probing: In his first night at South Park, the New Kid is abducted by aliens alongside Randy, Mr. Mackey, Craig, and Mr. Slave and undergoes this. Thanks to his immense control over his sphincter muscles, he manages to break free and gains an anal probe that allows him to interface with alien technology.

Butter's attack as Professor Chaos does the style from Good Times With Weapons.

The short sequence about the "Princess Kenny" show is this, complete with giving Kenny anime style eyes.

Apathetic Citizens: As is par for the course in South Park, everyone just goes about their business as Nazi zombies eat everyone. They seem more interested in their phones.

Apocalyptic Log: Parodied in the spaceship level, where you'll find various tape recorders containing the voice of a hobo who wonders why people (including him) are wasting time making these things and how he keeps finding more audio logs, each one more boring and irrelevant than the last.

Artistic License  Geography: Canada is just on the other side of the forest from South Park, Colorado. You even get to travel there and visit various Canadian cities, which are really close to one another.

Artistic License  Physics: At the end of the game, the boys throw the Stick of Truth into Stark's Pond, deciding it's caused enough trouble. After a few moments, the plain wooden stick sinks. Makes for a great dramatic cutscene, though.

Art Shift: Go far enough north and you'll end up in Canada, which is rendered in 8-bit graphics.

Ascended Extra: A few of the minor 4th grade classmates get their own roles to play in the game. One side quest involves having to find Kevin Stoley's iPad, while Annie will be grateful to the player for defending her from a group of bullies. There's also a mission to recruit the girls to your side. Hell, you even get a quest from Dogpoo, whose ONLY major appearance in the show featured other characters calling him a background prop. It also turns out that The Heavy is Clyde.

One of your summons, Mr. Slave, has a leather whip as his item. When the New Kid cracks it, he appears and does his attack, "Wrecked 'Em" — he unzips his pants, jumps high into the air, and shoves the unfortunate target straight up his ass (even if the target is something as big as a Dire Bear). It's about as pleasant as it sounds.

One level revolves around the many things Mr. Slave has up there. You can get a secret trophy by summoning Mr. Slave to shove an enemy up his ass from within his own ass.

"Awkward Silence" Entrance: When the "humans" enter the "elf" bar, the bar goes on normally until they ask for The Bard, and then the place goes silent.

Back Stab: The Thief's "Backstab" ability can attack the last enemy in a row, pierces defense, and can inflict the bleeding status if successful.

Bait-and-Switch: For the entire game, it seems as though the government is after the New Kid for his power of Fartillery. Even the characters think this when the government finally manages to catch him. However, Big Bad Government Guy explains that it's actually the New Kid's power to rapidly make friends on social networking sites that they're after.

Batter Up!: The Fighter's Assault and Battery ability makes use of a baseball bat.

The Battle Didn't Count: Partways into the game, four elves will jump you and ask to take you to the Elf King. They will specifically note that you can fight them instead of co-operating, but it's pointless because there is no way you can beat them at this point in the game. The prompt even asks you twice before letting you fight them. Thing is, if the player's been exploring and doing sidequests, it's very possible to beat them in one turn. But even if you do, immediately after the fight, they're all fine, and will knock you out with a single blow and drag you off to the Elf King anyway.

Bears Are Bad News: Dire Bears, as seen in Canada. They're like Bears... but they're DIRE.

Beam-O-War: The ending of the Cartman/Kyle battle has you countering a flaming fart/a leaf blower with your fart.

Big-Bad Ensemble: Several characters fulfill the role of Big Bad at one point or another. Elf King Kyle is the leader of all the elves the New Kid fights throughout the first part of the game. This role can be switched to Cartman should the New Kid choose to join the elves at the last minute. Both characters abandon this role once Clyde, wielding the Stick of Truth and a vat of alien chemicals, takes over the role. Meanwhile, the Aliens are responsible for the Nazi Zombies and the intervention of the Underpants Gnomes, albeit indirectly for both. Finally, Big Bad Government Guy is the head of all the government opponents of the game and the biggest threat by the game's end. Even he ends up in a Big Bad Duumvirate with Princess Kenny, with the latter as the Final Boss.

Bigger on the Inside: The girls' room at the park, despite being housed inside a very small building, is home to their secret clubhouse, which is more akin to a conference room.

In the spaceship level, both Randy and the player character get violated by the alien anal probes.

During the battle at Jimmy's house, Princess Kenny is taken hostage in one of the rooms and is apparently being raped by the elves. Once you reach the room, you can even hear Kenny screaming and sounds of the bed squeaking. Upon rescue, it is revealed that Princess Kenny is just tied up and an elf is just jumping on the bed.

Black Is Bigger in Bed: During the Anal Probing session, the aliens first bring out a white probe. If you break that one (pretty easy), they replace it with a larger, black one. That one is very difficult to break.

Blatant Lies: When the flying saucer crashes into South Park, which shakes up the whole town, how does the government cover it up? They try to cover the saucer with tents and tarps that are too small and tells the public that a giant new Taco Bell restaurant is being built there. Everybody, except maybe the New Kid, believes it.

Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: During the final boss, every member of the party is eventually incapacitated after scripted events where they counter Nazi Zombie Kenny's most powerful attacks.

Brown Note: One of Jimmy the Bard's attacks is to play a deep rumbling "note" on his flute, which will bombard the New Kid with multiple ranged attacks that do heavy damage and can overload the mana meter to the point where he craps his pants.

Once Jimmy becomes a selectable buddy, his Brown Note becomes his final ability, where he switches out his flute for an alpine horn the size of a ski slope.

Bullet Catch: Sort of, the New Kid does encounter some foes that fight with firearms, and it actually IS possible (if still fairly difficult if you don't have the timing down) for him and his party members block bullets, though they'd still suffer considerable damage from the attack.

But Thou Must!: Played for laughs a lot, parodying player 'choices' in other RPGs.

No matter what you put down when naming your character, Cartman will say that you put down "Douchebag" as your name, even if you keep telling him that you didn't. Lampshaded with the achievement "Acceptance", which you earn by saying yes both times Cartman asks you to confirm it.

When the elves confront you and inform you that the Elf King has requested your presence, you're given the choice to come quietly or fight. If you choose to fight them, you get dragged away to the Elf King after the battle anyway. This is also Lampshaded by one of the elf soldiers saying "There's no point of fighting us at this point in the game".

When you're asked by the photographer to take off your clothes, you can refuse twice, but by the third time both your choices are the same.

At the end, when the Big Bad Government Guy is giving his Motive Rant, the boys ask if they can skip the rant, wondering out loud if there is a skip button they can press. When you try to press to skip, you get the message 'Can't Skip'.

At the very beginning of the game, after you have been named Douchebag, and Cartman tells you to buy a weapon from Clyde, Clyde offers you tips and rumors for two dollars, a feature very common in most RPGs. If you select the option, however, Clyde just tells you not to waste your money on tips and rumors.

Call-Back: Pretty much everything from the show's (at the time of the game) 17 seasons is referenced in one way or another, if not as active elements in the game, then in little collectibles, photos, sound bites, bulletin boards, closets... even the Vendor Trash references items from the series. The alien-originated anal probe satellite dish is probably the most extreme example, as it was featured in the very first episode and made into a gameplay mechanic here.

The Woodland Christmas Critters can be found if you walk into the woods, then head right-up-right-down-right out of each screen.

Many of the series' sufferers of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome make some sort of cameo in the game. A missing person billboard in the police station features Halfy, Nurse Gollum, Chickenlover, and Damian (who makes a physical appearance in the movie theater). Characters who died throughout the series' 17 year run also appear on a memorial in the school (featuring Ms. Choksondick, Ms. Crabtree, Chef, and Pip). Ugly Bob, Scott the Dick, and Dr. Mephesto can be heard on television. In addition, Mr. Hat cameos briefly near the very end of the game up Mr. Slave's ass.

Rancher Denkins, who hasn't been used in the show since the first six seasons, plays a role, now named 'Rancher Bill' in Jimmy's flute quest line.

Even very minor characters, like the Security Guard by Token's House, and Nurse Fran at Unplanned Parenthood, are largely borrowed from the show's history, rather than new creations.

Darth Chef, as resurrected by the Super Adventure Club, is seemingly stricken from canonicity by Chef being resurrected as a Nazi Zombie by Clyde.

The Woodland Christmas Critters are imaginary creatures in the show, but presented as real in the game. This is similar to the show conveniently forgetting that Terrence and Philip were originally cartoon characters within the show and handwaving their crude appearance as their being Canadian.

Canon Foreigner: In addition to the New Kid's Family for obvious reasons, Chris Donnely and Monica Ryland seem to have been created for the game, along with Jessie Rodriguez. The first two have made brief background appearances in the series since late in the game's development.

A much less obvious example is Dr. Martin Poonlover, who replaces the usual generic, brown-haired Unplanned Parenthood doctor.

Chekhov's Lecture: Every time you learn a new fart technique, you're told that you should never ever fart on someone's balls. That said, you need to do so to finish off the Final Boss.

Chekhov's Skill: You'd think the interactive abortion mini-game stops at the abortion clinic, you'd be wrong. It comes back full-force in Mr. Slave's anus where you use your skills to disarm a thermonuclear device. The robot has comments and reacts to your actions and missteps almost exactly as Randy did.

Cluster F-Bomb: Par for the course with South Park, certianly, but one of Cartman's abilities weaponizes it, by overloading the V-Chip he still has from the movie.

Commonplace Rare: Knowledge of French. It's such a rare thing that you have to travel to Canada and deal with their nobility to find the one man who can translate these notes you stole from the abortion clinic from French to English.

Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: If you spend too much time exploring South Park, your current party member will start griping at you to get back to the game.

Continuity Porn: From Aliens who can only say 'Moo', to characters that vanished after the early seasons appearing on "Missing Person" advertisements, to the fact that nearly every Vendor Trash item is a prop from one episode or another (and the descriptions typically reference or quote the episodes in question), to the fact that all the shops have original music from the show acting as muzak.

Contractual Boss Immunity: Every boss has a trait that makes them immune to stun, sleep, and pissed, just because. Additionally, when you unlock a summon, they each explain that they refuse to go near bosses.

Counter Attack: Timing defense correctly will allow The New Kid to block and knock the foe off balance, allowing you to return some damage before their turn ends.

Creepy Crossdresser: Princess Kenny, who plays it straight by grossing out enemies with a kiss, then inverts it by charming them with a display of his nipples. Creepily also works on adults and strangely works on animals.

Damage Over Time: The Bleeding, Grossed Out, and Burning status deal this. These can stack from multiple sources and isn't mitigated by armor, making them a good way to take down enemies and bosses.

Dark Reprise / Triumphant Reprise: The background music for Human and Elf kingdoms, respectively. The latter being lighter while still remaining as somber.

Decapitation Presentation: Only with castration instead. One quest has the prince of Canada ordering you to go kill the Bishop of Banff, and bring back his balls as proof. Alternatively, you can spare the Bishop, who gives you a pair of Dire Pig testicles to fool the prince.

Shelley Marsh will befriend the New Kid if you talk to her after completing Stan's side quest to defeat her.

Kyle and Cartman will friend the New Kid on Facebook after the boss battle in the school, which will have taken place against one of the two depending on the player's choice.

Denser and Wackier / Hotter and Sexier: Not to say that the show is tame by any means, but thanks to video games having looser ratings and censorship standards compared to Television, the Stick of Truth manages to be South Park in its absolutely most insane, obscene, and shocking form. Which, needless to say, is pretty impressive.

Desperation Attack: The more that the Jew class gets damaged, the stronger the abilities, making them most powerful with only one hitpoint left.

Developers' Foresight: Most major characters have multiple unique quotes when you fart on them, and if you use Fighter's Roshambo on Nazi Zombie Princess Kenny when you're supposed to finish her off by farting on her balls, Cartman complains that he told you to fart on Kenny's balls, not kick them.

Devoured by the Horde: Princess Kenny has the ability "Swarm of Rats", in which he summons a huge wave of rats to attack his enemies, but if he fails the prompt then the rats will also devour Kenny.

Difficult, but Awesome: The Jew class is intended as "high risk, high reward" class. Ultimately subverted, however. Jews get some bonuses depending on how damaged they are and how many status effects they're suffering, but those pale in comparison to their "Plagues of Egypt" ability. It does pretty close to everything an attack could conceivably do. So a higher level Jew will open every combat with an attack that does enough damage to kill or almost kill every single enemy, inflicts bleeding, inflicts grossed out, inflicts burning, reduces armor, inflicts attack down, boosts the Jew and his allies with Ability Up, and boosts the Jew and his allies with Attack Up. This isn't some roulette that has a chance to inflict some of these things - unless an enemy is completely immune it will inflict ALL of them. No non-boss enemy encounter in the game has a ghost of a chance to turn the fight around after being screwed so hard, and neither do most bosses.

Dire Beast: All the creatures in Canada have the "Dire" prefix to them and are all described by the locals as "Like (X), but Dire".

Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Battle for South Park Elementary School serves as the climax for Human-Drow Elf War arc that takes up the majority of the game's first half with either Kyle or Cartman serving as the Disk One Final Boss depending on who you side against.

The Mongorian Bow. Its standard attack does three hits and all of them inflict burning, which takes off a chunk of the enemy's health - this is especially effective as the majority of enemies at that point in the game are weak to burning.

The Mage's "Dragon Breath" is powerful for its anti-armor and burning power early in the game.

Combining the Holy Defender robe (a pre-order item that gives you 15 armour) with the Warrior's Scimitar (a sword available for purchase immediately after the tutorial, which adds 3X your armour score to your attack damage) allows you to do over 200HP damage in a single turn at a time when most enemies' total health is less than half that much.

Disney Villain Death: Clyde is thrown out of the highest room of his massive treehouse by Cartman. Though he survives the fall, the falling sequence certainly mimics most examples of this trope.

Duel Boss: The fight against Cartman or Kyle at the school (depending on which one you decide to attack) will be this.

Dung Fu: Shit Nuggets can be collected and tossed at enemies to inflict the Grossed Out status. Bonus points if it's your own shit from a toilet you took a dump in.

Dwindling Party: During the final battle, your buddies succumb to fatigue and injury one by one until the only man left standing between you and certain death... is Cartman.

Dying as Yourself: After spending the first half of his boss fight Brainwashed and Crazy, Chef starts to snap out of his Nazi Zombie funk, only to be set on fire by Clyde and ordered to suicide-charge The New Kid and his partner, forcing the former to destroy him with Fartillery. For a few precious seconds, he's finally free.

Exact Words: Kyle tells that the way to the Kingdom to the North (Canada) is to enter the forest and travel "North, north, north, and north". He means it literally: the forest is a maze a la The Legend of Zelda.

The kid whose one job was to protect the Stick, Clyde Donovan, is revealed to have taken the Stick.

Clyde: I shall raise an army of darkness! And kill the Earth!

Craig is the only named kid who sides with Clyde.

Near the end of the story, Kenny joins forces with the Big Bad Government Guy and serves as the game's Final Boss.

Failure Is the Only Option: When you're playing the game of "Simon Says" to free Randy from his probe, if you fail he gets probed. Well, after you get the first two steps right, the third will take a huge difficulty leap so he'll get hilariously probed anyway - before returning to easy to let you pass.

The level involving the Underpants Gnomes shows the New Kid's parents having some really aggressive sex in the background. Let's just say that time has not been kind to his mother's breasts.

Near the end of the game, after Big Bad Goverment Guy gets the Stick of Truth, he rips off all his clothes during his A God I Am rant. He spends the rest of the game completely naked, even scratching his balls ocassionally during the battle with Princess Kenny

Fantastic Drug: Gnome Dust is essentially cocaine that lets you shrink and grow.

"Fantastic Voyage" Plot: The New Kid shrinks himself to gnome-size and enters Mr. Slave's body through his anus in order to deactivate a nuclear device the government planted inside him.

Fartillery: Both Cartman and The New Kid use this. Randy Marsh is also capable of this, seen in one of the E3 trailers, teaching it to the Player Character. Farting gives an equivalent status effect of being poisoned, and can be used to set off explosions when aimed at fires.

Timmy's only appearances in the game are for the purposes of a fast-travel system where he tows The New Kid around town. An episode in Season 18 of the show (made after the game) has Timmy starting a business doing the exact same thing.

During the alien abduction, the New Kid can fight a Zombie Nazi Hobo and can find his audiolog mentioning how he ate some glowing green goo before he turned into one.

The very first fart that the protagonist learns is referred to as Dragon Shout. That's not the only Skyrim reference attached to him, there's also his name, Dovahkiin.

Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: Early on in the game, The New Kid swears an oath to never fart on somebody's balls. He has to fart on Nazi Zombie Princess Kenny's balls to stop her.

Funny Background Event: Sometimes in battle you'll see things like a cat chasing/chased by rats, or an animal eating its own vomit if they were afflicted with Grossed Out.

Fun with Acronyms: Cartman's headquarters is called the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, occasionally abbreviated "KKK." And Token was convinced by Cartman to join despite his initial reservations. It's unclear whether Cartman has any idea of the implications, or whether this has anything to do with the fact that his rivals are "Drow Elves," which are black-skinned in Dungeons and Dragons. In addition, Cartman's title is the Grand Wizard.

Jimmy's side quest is to retrieve a flute from the farm. If the player doesn't complete the quest until the post-game, he'll still have the flute in the final boss.

Even if you wait until post-game to do the flute quest, you still have to fight four Nazi Zombie cows, despite the outbreak being completely cured after the final boss.

When heading into Mr. Slave's ass to disarm a snuke, the New Kid is joined by whichever party member was partnered with him at that time (who complains about it), only to be seen outside of Mr. Slave's body in cutscenes during the same sequence. Hell, you can switch to any buddy you want inside Mr. Slave's anus. During the same sequence, the player can still summon Mr. Slave in battle, even though the battle is taking place within Mr. Slave's body. There's actually an achievement for doing this.

Though the New Kid is seen giving Timmy a dollar for his services before climbing onto his "carriage," the Fast Travel is free.

Even though it involves taking down their faction banners, you can feel free to have members of Kupa Keep as your designated party member during the "Restoring the Balance" quest. They won't interfere or even comment on your betrayal. In fact, if you wait long enough to take down all of them, one can have Cartman be in the party as you destroy every single flag, then rant about what he's going to say to whoever took them down, once he finds them.

The videoscreens on the UFO showing Randy being anal-probed will still show it even after he escapes.

Geographic Flexibility: Averted; while the size and locations of South Park varied in the show, this game sets these features in stone. Kyle, Stan, and Cartman are neighbors, while Kenny lives across the train tracks next to their houses.

Despite this being South Park, The New Kid's mom is genuinely kind and loving towards her son.

The New Kid's dad is considerably more abrasive in comparison, but even then, the only reason he ever gets angry or frustrated with his son is his unwillingness to talk and tendency to stay out late, which are fairly reasonable things for a Real Life parent to get impatient with. This puts him miles ahead of The Stotches in contrast. That said, he does flat-out call his son ugly on numerous occasions.

Grim Up North: Canada is depicted and referred to as a mysterious kingdom of the North, home to bears that can summon meteors and shoot eye lasers. Also, some gear you can get from there are barbarian themed. They also have dire wolves, which are supposed to be extinct. They're like wolves, but dire.

Global Currency Exception: In Canada, American dollars can't be used to buy items. Fortunately, you can exchange your money (in both directions) in the bank or just sell loot to the Canadian merchants.

Following the discovery of the snuke in Mr. Slave's ass, every death the player has until the snuke is disarmed is immediately followed by a shot of a nuclear explosion and the credits, before bringing up the standard game over screen. If the player turns around and walks out of the room the snuke immediately goes off.

Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Big Bad Government Guy wants you for your amazing power to make friends on Facebook. While that sounds stupid at first, think about the power social media presence has in Real Life.

HeelFace Door-Slam: Nazi Zombie Chef manages to come to his senses, only for Clyde to light him on fire, forcing you to finish him off.

Hypocrite: Kyle tells the New Kid that if he betrays the Drow Elves, he'll tell everyone that the New Kid's a butthole. Even though Kyle's actively asking the New Kid to betray the first people in South Park to befriend him.

I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: When busting Craig out of detention, Mr. Mackey keeps telling the New Kid that he's never going to get him out all the while telling him that he has to get several keys in a specific order.

Infinity -1 Sword: The Fairy Princess Blade; despite only being the fourth strongest weapon in terms of pure damage, it's default effect ignores enemy armor, and it comes with two Strap-On slots, making it quite versatile.

Infinity +1 Sword: Averted with the Sweet Katana, the most damaging melee weapon in the game because the sword can be simply bought at anytime from Jimbo's shop. All you have to be is Level 14 to use it.

One of the achievement/trophies spoils that you can friend both the underpants gnomes and the crab people.

If you examine the surgical gear as soon as you obtain it, it has bonuses that help against fetus enemies. You might first assume that these are useless joke bonuses, like the ones on the goth clothing, but guess what you'll be fighting in a few minutes.

Ironic Echo: Never EVER fart on a man's balls...unless you're fighting Princess Kenny, in which case, you do it to win the game.

It's Up to You: The New Kid is the only one in the game who ever does anything. From ridding South Park of it's homeless population to heading straight to Canada to translate a french abortion document to beating up half the population of South Park, everybody else mostly just stands around telling the New Kid to do things rather than doing anything themselves.

Jerkass: The New Kid's dad isn't exactly caring towards him, though it might be more due to his frustration with his son's refusal to talk than inherent jackassary. Cartman's not that nice either, of course, though it's toned down from the show proper.

During the scene at the abortion clinic, as Randy starts demanding to know why "Taco Bell" are interested in the vaginas of South Park's women, one of the government suits is holding a sensor in his hands and states that the "ESRB/PEGI/OFLC is going crazy!" - ESRB being the American ratings board for video games, with PEGI being the European counterpart and the OFLC the Australian equivalent.

LARP: Taken to the extreme that the whole town's gonna be wrecked by the end of it. Then again this is South Park, so that's nothing new.

Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Big Bad Government Guy arrives and starts giving a Plot Dump, Cartman asks if he can press a button to skip this. The BBGG says no. If you press the button which normally skips cutscenes, you'll be told you can't do that here.

Leitmotif: The short banjo sting from the post-ad breaks in the actual show plays whenever a save file is loaded.

Literal-Minded: When Father Maxi asks the player to find Jesus, a quest pop-up appears challenging the player to literally "find Jesus" in a game of hide-and-seek.

MacGuffin: The titular Stick of Truth that the kids are battling over. Anyone who holds it controls the universe and can make up the rules of the game.

Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The entire LARP session. It's easy to presume things like stickers adding "fire damage" to your weapons and eating Cheesy Poofs to heal your wounds are part of the game, and the more out-there attacks like Butters summoning lightning to his hammer are their imaginations at work. Then you start fighting enemies that aren't playing the game, but you can still set them on fire and eat snacks to recover the wounds they inflict on you, and it's hard to tell. The absolute exception to this trope is the Stick of Truth itself, which is shown to undeniably be just a normal piece of wood. Big Bad Government Guy finds this out the hard way.

Meaningful Name: One of your magic spells is a reference to the actual city of Nagasaki, which was one of the cities in Japan that got hit with the Atomic Bomb.

Medium Awareness: Most of the characters know they're in a game, though they rarely address it.

Mercy Rewarded: The New Kid is tasked by the Prince of Canada with killing the Bishop of Banff and taking his testicles. After the battle with him, the Bishop offers to just go into hiding and give the New Kid a pair of Dire Pig's testicles instead. If the player accepts the offer, the Bishop friends the New Kid on Facebook and the Prince falls for the trick. If the player kills the Bishop, things go the same way with the Prince, but the New Kid obviously doesn't get the Bishop as a friend on Facebook, denying the player 100% Completion.

Metroidvania: Unlike most RPGs, some collectibles require a specific ability from a certain part (like turning tiny, or breaking rocks with the Nagasaki).

The reason why Clyde stole the Stick of Truth was because Cartman banished him from space and time after failing to protect the Stick from the Drow Elves.

Invoked by Big Bad Government Guy when Kenny turns on the rest of the party and joins him, the party is told an elaborate backstory that explains Kenny's betrayal. However, the backstory is entirely made up and completely within the context of the game the kids are playing.

Money for Nothing: Not nothing, exactly, but through looting enemy bodies and item caches you can rack up all sorts of resources to keep you plenty stocked at almost all times (as well as finding new equipment, weapons, and enhancement patches in the same fashion). Finding that you can't pick up something just because you've already got the maximum number can be a frequent occurrence. Furthermore, Vendor Trash is virtually everywhere so whenever you go to dump it, you can rack up a ton of cash. The only thing you really need to spend money on is consumables (and that assumes you weren't being prudent with what you're finding in the field) and consumables only typically cost a couple of dollars per item when you could be easily toting around over $500 just by collecting cash and selling junk.

Mr. Exposition: Morgan Freeman appears out of nowhere at the end to explain Princess Kenny's backstory and why she'd betray the kids. When asked why he's here, he states that every time he shows up to explain something, he gains a freckle.

Murder Is the Best Solution: When the Underpants Gnomes find out that New Kid is awake and has witnessed their attempt to steal his underpants.

Gnome #1: This kid is AWAKE! What the fuck do we do?!

Gnome #2: I guess we gotta kill him!

Gnome #3: All right, fuck it, let's kill him.

Mutagenic Goo: The green goo from outer space turns the whole town into Nazi zombies.

A trailer showed Randy teaching the Nagasaki. In the actual game, you learn this fart from Terrence and Philip once you've shown them that you can do the three other ones. Randy only teaches the Sneaky Squeaker.

Pretty much nothing from the E3 2012 Trailer (which was before the collapse of THQ) appears in the final game. So no dying Mr. Garrison, vampire kids and crab people are not enemy creatures (only one crab person shows up and vampire kids show up in a couple of cutscenes), and no giant Clyde.

Clyde wouldn't have stolen the Stick of Truth and raised an army of Nazi Zombies if Cartman hadn't banished him from the Kingdom of Kupa Keep at the start of the game.

Had "Douchebag" simply escaped the alien ship instead of crashing it into South Park, he would've avoided spreading a Nazi Zombie plague and giving Clyde an undead army. Although it's excused in that he had no choice but to confront the pilots of the ship, because Randy broke the elevator that went to the exit as he made his escape.

During the siege of the Giggling Donkey Inn, Jimmy holds a door shut to stop Cartman and the others getting to him. When Cartman calls him on it and says it's against the rules, Jimmy points out that since he has the Stick of Truth and controls the universe, he's decided that he can do that.

When the kids find out Clyde had stolen the Stick of Truth the prior night, Cartman points out that what he'd done was against the rules of the game and Cartman had banished him from the game before that. Like Jimmy before him, Clyde points out that he has the Stick, so he's decided that he's allowed to unbanish himself and break the game's rules.

No Swastikas: The game's release was delayed in Germany because the Nazi zombies were all voiced by actual Hitler speeches, and the zombies all wore swastika armbands.

Nobody Poops: Strictly averted, being that this is South Park. The New Kid can use toilets, collect the excrement and use it as a weapon in battle to gross out his targets. He can also void his bowels during battle, which can lead to the player gaining achievements and points.

Nobody's That Dumb: After you complete the side quest for Mr. Hankey, he will help the New Kid where you can summon him, but not for boss fights.

Mr. Hankey: Anytime you need my help, you just call on me and I'll be there sure as a shit on a Sunday! Howwwwdy Ho! Except against bosses of course. I might have shit for brains, but I'm not stupid.

Prior to the final bosses, it's discovered that a snuke has been planted in Mr. Slave's ass. Whilst everyone else is racking their brains for someone able to shrink small enough to head into Mr. Slave's ass and able to abort the snuke, if the player turns around and leaves the room, the snuke promptly explodes.

You can also fail some of the minigames for some funny deaths/fail-states. If you fail the snuke game, you get footage of a nuclear explosion, followed by credits in the style of the show for over a minute. The same minigame is in the abortion clinic, and the guards will shoot you dead if you fail it.

There's also the "Call your Dad" attack that the Hallway Monitor Boss uses on you.

During the final boss fight Cartman holds Princess Kenny for the player to fart on her balls. However, if enough time passes without the player doing this, Princess Kenny will kill Cartman, leading to the game over screen.

Noodle Incident: The Battle of Wormsly Woods, mentioned by Butters. Whatever happened, the Humans have never forgiven the Elves, even though Jimmy apologized.

Kyle claims that Cartman is just using the New Kid and is a manipulator, but when he has the New Kid brought to him, he immediately starts ranting and demands the New Kid immediately swap sides and threatens to have him labelled as a butthole if he doesn't.

Big Bag Government Guy tells the New Kid they aren't so different, both following orders from higher powers to do their bidding.

Offscreen Teleportation: Used by the Thief's backstab ability. At least there's a puff of smoke when he appears on the other side of the screen.

Oh, Crap!: When a Wizard Douchebag casts Pyre Ball (read: A foam football stuffed with dynamite), the enemies on screen start freaking out just before it hits.

Oh, No... Not Again!: The government agents react with annoyance when they discover that they are dealing with yet another Nazi Zombie virus.

One-Hit Kill: The Hallway Monitor Boss has a Desperation Attack where he uses his handphone to ring Douchebag's dad. Don't stop the attack, and you get a Game Over no matter how much health you or your partner have.

Orifice Evacuation: After aborting the snuke in Mr. Slave's ass, you pop out of his mouth.

Orifice Invasion: You will eventually have to shrink and go up Mr. Slave's ass to disarm the nuke put in there.

Overly Long Gag: Jimmy's stuttering, par the course. The game even gives you a popup to skip it during the main story quests involving him, which you might want to as he can take up to a minute to finish talking.

And his stuttering loops multiple times, which may make the player think that the only way to progress is to hit the "Skip" popup.

There is one instance, though, where you can't skip it at all.

Parental Sexuality Squick: Averted. Your character doesn't seem the least fazed at having to witness his parents agressively going at it. Then again, he's rarely fazed with anything. In fact, not only is he NOT fazed, when he sees it start, the after-battle victory sound effect plays, and he gets a free battle's worth of Exp.

Permanently Missable Content: Anything available in the UFO and the school siege, which, frustratingly, includes several weapons, armors, and Chinpokomon. The Tower of Peace, however, remains intact after seemingly blowing up, allowing you to clean it out afterwards.

Phlebotinum Overload: If the Mana meter is held at an over-full danger level for too long, the New Kid will crap his pants and lose all the mana.

Player and Protagonist Integration: You are "the new kid", whose family just moved to South Park. You customize yourself as a South Park character. You're able to set your own name but the game gets around Hello, [Insert Name Here] (because everything is voiced so it's unable to just ad-lib in custom text during dialogue) by having Cartman simply call your character "Douchebag" all the time, which makes whatever name you picked irrelevant.

Well, not quite. This is, after all, a South Park game, and Cluster F-Bombs get tossed around like rice at a wedding. However, towards the end of the game, a character drops a line that's so harsh, even by the game's standards, that it's only rendered in the subtitles as '—— ——!'

Nazi Zombie Chef:Sieg heil!

Done by Butters, who normally falls into Gosh Dang It to Heck! territory, when the player uses a certain ability:

During the second night, the player character is shrunk to the size of an Underpants Gnome and chases them through his house's walls. He ends up seeing his parents having sex through an air vent, then taken Up to Eleven when he chases the gnomes into his parents' room to fight a boss battle that takes place on the bed where the act is taking place.

In one of the houses of Ottawa, Canada; walking upstairs will have you bust a couple doing it. The guy yells: "Who the fuck just walks into someone's house?!" Promptly kicking you out and locking the door.

Opening a door to house which isn't owned by a named character can result in the following: A naked woman standing there, a man masturbating on the couch and a man having sex with a horse, all of which scream and close the door. The doors can't be opened again.

Getting people to friend you on Facebook is an important game mechanic.

The government is able to hide the downed alien spacecraft by saying it's the construction site of a new Taco Bell. And most of the townsfolk say nice things about the new Taco Bell. Though oddly they do not use the real Taco Bell logo.

UPS and Pabst Blue Ribbon logos appear, though they have no bearing on the game's plot.

Cartman: You have broken the rules of the Stick, and for that I banish thee. I banish thee FROM SPACE! AND! TIME! (Kicks Clyde off his fortress)

The Quiet One: The New Kid turns out to be one when he finally says something at the end of the game: "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

Rat Stomp: One of the side quests involves killing the rats in the basement of Skeeter's Bar. Skeeter goads you into doing this, saying that if you're a hero then naturally you would want to clean the rats out of someplace.

When entering the Kingdom of Canada, the player can no longer buy anything in shops, because they only take Canadian dollars. You must grind some Canadian enemies or change out your money.

Speaking of Canada, the method of entry isn't determined by how powerful you are or how many friends you have... You simply need a passport, just as you would in real life to travel between the two countries.

The game invokes this in a meta-sense - at the start of the second day, Cartman rushes into the New Kid's house and claims that the Drow Elves had stolen the Stick of Truth over the course of the night. Later, when the New Kid is brought before Elf King Kyle, he accuses Cartman of hiding it himself and claiming the Drow Elves had stolen it, which fans of the show would notice as being something Cartman would probably do. Turns out that Clyde was the one who did it.

At the end of the second day, the New Kid overhears his parents talking why they had to move to South Park in the first place. The player is led to believe that they moved there to protect their son from people looking to weaponize his Fartillery skills. Nope, it's because of his ability to befriend people incredibly quickly.

Redemption Equals Death: Chef, having previously died after being corrupted into a child molester by the Super Adventure Club, is resurrected by Clyde as a Nazi Zombie and returns to his senses near the end of the battle, only to be set on fire by Clyde and force the New Kid into killing Chef again.

Much like the show itself, the game runs with it. For instance, there are five brief scenes of Anal Probing and two interactive abortion mini-games. However, the Europeannote though in most countries there it only affects console versions and Australian versions had those scenes censored and replaced with images of Michelangelo's David doing a Face Palm and a crying koala respectively, as well as a paragraph describing what's happening.

Out of the battle bosses, Shelley Marsh particularly runs on this in her battle as the "She-Ogre"- all of her boss attacks are based off of her menstruation and her PMS-enhanced rage.

The latter part of the Underpants Gnomes sequence is set to the scenery of the New Kid's parents having rough, graphic sex. One of the environmental hazards is both you and the boss having to dodge getting teabagged by the New Kid's Dad. Also, the New Kid uses gnome dust by snorting it like coke.

A late-game dungeon is set inside Mr. Slave's ass.

The game claims you've gone too far if you fart on the corpse of an aborted nazi zombie fetus... by giving you an achievment named "Too Far".

Rewarding Vandalism: Breaking things will often give you some Vendor Trash. Because everything gets repaired once you return to an area, breaking things is an endless source of cash, though money is already very easy to come by. You can also cut out the middle man and break parking meters and newspaper stands to immediately get a small amount of cash.

Fartillery plays a large part in the game. But you are told by everyone, regardless of age or creed, to never, EVER, fart on anyone's balls.

Jimmy's stuttering, particularly when it comes to the words "Magical songs of enchantment".

Everything in Canada is described with the word Dire, ranging from Dire Wolves to Dire Snakes and up to Dire AIDS.

Someone will inevitably make a comment about how awful your hair is. Or your nose.

Savage Wolves: There are dire wolves roaming around the map in Canada. They're like wolves... but they're DIRE.

Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The real power of the Stick of Truth is to let anyone who holds it to either ignore the rules of the game or to make up new ones. Near the end, it even allows Craig to completely ignore AoE damage just because Clyde said so.

Even though some of the summons don't do enough damage to actually kill off the entire enemy party or just target a single enemy, all the enemies still go running off after one is used, meaning you win the battle instantly, thus giving the implication that it's not worth the trouble fighting against someone who can call upon the aid of gay men with bottomless asses, schizophrenic sword-wielding restaurant owners or Jesus Christ wielding a machine gun.

"Screw you guys, I'm going home." Said by the new kid at the end of the game.

Semantic Superpower: The New Kid's ability to perform abortions allows him to abort the detonation sequence of a snuke.

Sequel Hook: After the New Kid goes home after disposing of the Stick of Truth, Al Gore peeks out from behind a tree in the background, dressed in his ManBearPig costume.

Serious Business: It may essentially be capture-the-flag using a LARPing motif, but whoever controls the Stick controls the universe. And quite naturally, this gets escalated.

Plenty between The New Kid and Bebe. A good majority of her dialogue towards the New Kid is something along the lines of how attractive she finds him, she decides to use him as her "fake" boyfriend to trap whichever girl was spreading lies, and after New Kid befriends the girls Wendy sends him a Facebook message saying Bebe invited him to a private slumber party (where he is likely to be the only boy present).

The New Kid also gets some with Annie, having saved her from a group of bullies, helping him out, and being the first girl he recruits.

Shmuck Bait: There's a lot of things you can do that cause you to lose money. You can pay Clyde $2.00 for a tip/rumor, only for him to give you the tip of "Never spend money on tips and rumors." You can also invest twenty dollars in the bank. "Aaaaaaand it's gone" follows (unless you fight him when gnome size first). However, if you fight him AFTER investing, you receive double whatever you invested.

Mr. Hanky's "Shitstorm" summon basically turns him into Mickey in Sorcerer's Apprentice. But with shit much like he did in Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls.

Stan's victory pose at the end of battle is reminiscent of Cloud Strife's. On top of that, Stan's 'Way of the Sword' skill is similar to Cloud's Omnislash.

The Mission "O Canada", which players will have a hard time to get this reference until facing the Dire Bear.

The lilting female announcer voice on the snuke is obviously patterned after GlaDOS.

The government complains about Nazi Zombies being an overused game trope.

Chinpokomon return from their self-titled episode as collectible figures. A few of the new designs are visual parodies of Pokémon up to Gen V, such as Stegmata (Wartortle), Accountafish (Magikarp with a hat, cigar and briefcase), Beetlebot (Ledyba), Biebersaurus (Deino), Brocorri (Pansage), and the scrapped Pharaocious (Lucario).

Burning, which reduces a character's health at the end of their turn and also makes them more vulnerable to magic attacks.

Bleeding, which reduces a character's health at the end of their turn and can stack up to 5 times, dealing more damage per stack.

Grossed Out, which reduces a character's health at the end of their turn. It also prevents them from eating food and reduces healing capabilities.

Pissed Off, which makes the afflicted attack the character who pissed them off, and also prevents usage of special moves.

Slowed, which makes a character take fewer actions.

Stunned, which prevents a character from attacking until their next turn.

Sleeping, which makes a character unable to take actions until woken up.

Screwed, which acts as a delayed death effect like Doom from the Final Fantasy series.

There's also Dire AIDS, which doesn't really do anything other than getting you a few achievements if you have it when completing certain storyline tasks. Getting it cured once will leave you with regular AIDS which needs to be cured a second time.

Status Quo Is God: In the post-game, South Park Mall is immediately rebuilt after the UFO is removed, the boys are back in their individual factions and Kenny's back at Kupa Keep, writing his FaceHeel Turn off as PMSing.

Stealth Pun: When you see Kevin's house, note his house number- 1701, the Enterprise registry number.

Stylistic Suck: Done intentionally with the style of the game as Matt and Trey wanted to capture the feel of the TV show as close as possible.

Suddenly Voiced: After you end the game, the guys ask your character what you/he wants to play next. The game tells you to press a button to speak. You promptly then say "Screw you guys, I'm going home." End of game.

Summon Magic: You can gain the ability to summon allies by doing side quests and befriending them. You can only use them once a day and they can't be used for boss fights..

The Reveal: The New Kid's actual name (or maybe codename) is Dovahkiin and the Government is after him because of his ability to make friends instantly on Facebook. The Government Agency person takes the stick, strips naked and converts Princess Kenny to his side. You really can't expect anything else from South Park, really.

Theme Music Power-Up: It happens during the first phase of the final battle, only, it's not your theme, but Princess Kenny's anime style song.

It's in full force, and incorporated into the game mechanics. Kenny can't be rezzed using revive items, he auto-revives after a battle is won, and auto-revives in combat after 2 turns. Comes into play at the end, fighting Nazi Zombie Princess Kenny who just keeps getting up when you deplete her health to zero.

This also occurs with The New Kid during the night. Even though he's in a violent spaceship crash on night one, and gets crushed by his dad's balls on night two, he always awakes safely in his bed the next morning.

Took a Level in Badass: The Nagasaki is a metaphysical one. When it was used in one of the trailers, it looked like it was going to be a sort of stun/gross combo. In the final game, it's an immensely powerful AoE ability that allows you the ability to destroy cracked rocks.

Too Kinky to Torture: Cartman's mom and Mr. Slave, as in the series proper. While everyone else will react with pain when you hit them, these two have...unique reactions. There's also the cutscene where you get abducted by aliens and your character sees glimpses of the other victims, one of them being Mr. Slave getting anal probed. Compared to every other victim who yells in pain, he loudly moans and asks the aliens to use the big silver one.

Trailers Always Spoil: The cover shows the crashed alien flying saucer, so you know you will have to deal with that at some point.

Unexplained Recovery: The night of Day 1 and Day 2 have The New Kid get abducted by aliens and crash their ship and get shrunk and crushed by his father's balls and The New Kid simply wakes up in his bed the next morning as though nothing had happened somehow though the effects of the events clearly still did.

Big Bad Government Guy tries to do this to the player character in the ending. He succeeds in turning Kenny over to his side.

Cartman also tries to pull this should you side with Kyle and the Elves on Day 2, claiming that he is willing to forgive you for being tricked, and that the two of you can rule together, "...as master and slave."

Welcome to Corneria: Justified example early on by Clyde and Scott, who both tell The New Kid that these are the lines given to them and Cartman doesn't allow them to talk out of script. Played straight in Canada, which is a parody of old school JRPGs.

In the Prima Official Guide to the game, there is an image of Big Bad Government Guy lying dead in the section after the final battle with Princess Kenny suggesting that he died shortly after The New Kid farts on Kenny's balls.

Where the Hell Is Springfield?: While the town remains in Colorado, one of the details Matt and Trey cite as being a great challenge is coherently mapping out South Park.

Trey: After fifteen years of doing the show, this was the first time Matt and I were like "Where is Kyle's house?"

Would Hit a Girl: You can beat up women and little girls as much as you want in this game, of course, your characters will pound the crap out of female enemies, such as female bullies and meth addicts, without remorse.

Would Hurt a Child: Your characters are all kids and there are lots of adult enemies ready to hurt them. On the other hand, you can hurt any child character you find, even if he/she does not attack you, and you can even beat up pre-school kids (however, they are far from defenseless, as they will attack you with cannonballs if you strike them first)

You Are in Command Now: If the Visitor Pilot on the spaceship is damaged enough (without being defeated), he will throw down his captain's hat and runs off, leaving the Copilot (if he's still alive) alone. This ability is actually called "You Have The Bridge." The co-pilot then uses an ability in response called "Make It So", which has him wearing the hat and gaining buffs in the process.

Your Size May Vary: Played with when your character shrinks to gnome size and enters Mr. Slave's ass. Normally one would think he must have shrunk more than normal, but then again, it's Mr. Slave's ass.

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